Page 126 of Honeyfires

But I had this. I had Vera holding me in our bed, in our home, choosing to love me through the worst of it. I had her certainty when I had none of my own, her strength when mine failed, her absolute refusal to let me face any of it alone.

And maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to get me through tomorrow.

It had to be.

Because she'd already proven that she meant every word. That she wasn't going anywhere. That love—real love, the kind that didn't flinch from the hard parts—was choosing to stay even when staying was difficult.

I fell asleep in her arms, finally, mercifully, with her fingers still combing through my hair and her heartbeat steady beneath my ear.

Tomorrow would come with all its problems intact. But tonight, I was safe. I was loved. I was home.

I'm Going to Listen, and Then I'm Going to Tell You What I Think. Honestly.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Vera had found her through the internet, which felt both inadequate and entirely on-brand for how things worked in today's world. She'd spent the evening while I was in the bath going through employment and labor attorneys in the greater Phoenix area, cross-referencing reviews, checking bar association records, looking specifically for someone with public sector labor experience and ideally fire service cases.

She'd found three candidates and ranked them in a spreadsheet.

I'd looked at the spreadsheet and swallowed down the emotions barrelling through me.

"You made a spreadsheet," I said.

"I made a spreadsheet." She didn't look up from her laptop.

The attorney she'd ranked first was named Diana Reyes. Fifteen years in public sector labor law, based in Phoenix but licensed in Arizona, with a notable win in a wrongful termination case involving a county paramedic three years ago. Her website was professional and sparse. Her reviews mentioned phrases like she knows the system and she didn't sugarcoat anything and I felt like someone was actually in my corner.

We had an appointment the next morning at ten.

Her office was in a building in central Phoenix that looked exactly like what it was: a place built for serious work. Eighth floor, clean waiting room, a receptionist who offered us ice-cold bottled water and meant it. We sat in adjacent chairs, Vera's hand in mine, both of us in the clothes we'd selected the night before with too much discussion. I was in dark jeans and a button-down, sleeves down to cover the tattoos. Vera had gently suggested this and I had not argued.

Diana Reyes came to get us herself, which set a good initial impression to me. Mid-fifties, dark hair streaked silver, with a handshake almost as firm as Rodriguez's. Her office had a wall of bookshelves, a desk stacked with orderly folders, and a window with a view of the city that she clearly never looked at.

"Sit." She gestured at the two chairs across from her desk, settled into her own, and opened a folder. "I've been following the Eagle Ridge coverage. Before we start, I want to be clear about what this meeting is. I'm going to listen, I'm going to ask questions, and I'm going to tell you what I think. Honestly. Not what you want to hear." She looked at me directly. "Can you work with that?"

"Yes," I said.

"Good." She uncapped her pen. "Tell me what happened. In your own words, from the moment you assessed the wind shift. Everything you said on comms, every order you gave, what you saw, what you based your decision on. Take your time."

So I told her. All of it, the way I'd told almost no one. Not the edited version I'd given Rodriguez, not the fragmented version I'd managed for Vera in the immediate aftermath. The whole sequence: the wind shift, the degrees of change I'd tracked, the spot fires, the frequency and distance, the crown fire behavior, the California memory that wasn't panic but pattern recognition, the calculation I'd run in my head, the sixty seconds I'd had to decide, the radio call, the evacuation, Stevens going down, the extraction, the homes.

She didn't interrupt. She wrote steadily. When I finished, she looked at her notes for a moment.

"The radio communications from that day," she said. "Your call to evacuate, Rodriguez's countermand, your response—all of that is on record."

"I know."

"That record is going to be the center of this case. Both for the agency and for your defense." She set down her pen. "Here's what you're facing. The formal charge is insubordination under San Jacinto County Fire District policy. Specifically, failure to comply with a direct order from a superior officer during an active incident. That's the charge. The six homes are cited as contributing conduct, but they're not a standalone charge, they're context the agency will use to argue the order was operationally justified."

"Meaning Rodriguez was right and I was wrong," I said.

"Meaning that's what they'll argue. Whether it holds depends on the evidence." She opened a second folder. "The post-incident meteorological data. Have you seen it?"

"Rodriguez mentioned it at the hospital. Said it supported my read."

"It does. I pulled the public incident report this morning." She turned the folder toward me. "The wind shift you described, fifteen degrees southwest to west, accelerating? It's documented in the weather station data from that ridge. The timing confirms your call came before the fire crowned, not after. The spot fire pattern is consistent with your reported observations." She paused. "This is significant. It means your assessment was accurate, and it means you acted before the danger became visible to everyone, not in reaction to it."

"But I still disobeyed a direct order," I said.